


Last Night

by pasdecoeur



Series: batlantern works [6]
Category: DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:54:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27311473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pasdecoeur/pseuds/pasdecoeur
Summary: It's the same old story.Hal wakes up the next morning and insists, “I wasn'tthathigh last night,” and Barry arched an eyebrow, and says, “Pal. You were so doped up you asked Bruce if he was single, and then stormed out of the room when he said he wasn't.”Except then Hal says, “Bruce is seeing someone?” in that hoarse, shivering scrape of a voice, like he's taken a knife to the gut, and you know what—This is nothing like that story at all.
Relationships: Hal Jordan/Bruce Wayne
Series: batlantern works [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1270748
Comments: 38
Kudos: 361





	1. Chapter 1

1\.   
It happened because Hal nearly split his head open on what should have been a routine op.  
  
Which in turn happened because of the demolition bots gone rogue and marching down Colwood Avenue in Metropolis, which almost definitely happened because Lex Luthor wanted the property rights and didn't give a damn who got hurt, which itself probably happened because his father didn't hug him enough, but the direct cause and effect action that fucked Bruce’s life up started with Hal getting slammed out of the sky by about forty tens of malfunctioning hardware. Bruce had watched the faint green glow that enveloped Hal Jordan's body flicker and go out like a Christmas light, the shadowy blur of his body agaisnt the night sky as he started to fall. He knew he had screamed for Clark at that point, from the log review, although he did not recall it, nothing except a formless, consuming horror that had trapped his body, torn at his throat.  
  
After that shitshow of a battle, nobody had been in the mood for a party, drained thoroughly of the desire for anything but food and company and a little quiet.  
  
They had dragged themselves back to the Hall by common, unspoken consensus, dug into takeaway pad Thai and pizza courtesy of Barry, while some black-and-white Truffaut flick played quietly on the giantscreen TV. Shazam was the only one paying it any attention.  
  
Oliver came in a little later, looking totally beat — somehow, he'd been the one who ended up handing Hal over into Leslie's care — and Bruce passed him a box of phad mee kraw, which he accepted with a small, grateful smile.  
  
“How's Lantern doing?” Bruce asked him.  
  
“Okay. Bone regrowth's a bitch and a half, but— Hey do you have any—” Bruce tossed him a coke, “—thanks. Leslie has him on meds. It seems like the ring is having some kind of accelerating effect on his recovery.”  
  
"Meds?” Bruce repeated. The sick feeling in his stomach had started to abate just a little. There had been a moment, during the fight, when the Lantern had just taken that critical hit and Bruce had seen it from a nearby rooftop, what felt like a hundred miles too far away... Not yet, something in Bruce had screamed, as he had shot towards the ground with the velocity of a bullet escaping the muzzle, Mach point-eight on the speed dial, not yet not yet Hal Hal Hal—  
  
“Enough to put down a small elephant,” Oliver confirmed.   
  
“But he’ll be okay.”  
  
“Yeah, yeah. It was a mild concussion. Lantern suits are pretty well shock-proofed. He only got hurt because he didn't see the blow coming. He’ll be fine. As long as he stays in b— Oh hell, why do I ever open my mouth. Hal, you're supposed to—”  
  
“Ollie,” Hal mumbled happily, and staggered into the man, wrapping him in a hug. His right arm was still in a wrist cast. Bruce hadn't even known he'd hurt his wrist. “You're so nice.”  
  
“Oh my god,” Oliver mumbled, crushed against Hal’s chest, not making much attempt to move. This was probably because he didn't want to risk causing Hal more damage, but on the other hand: it was a very nice chest.   
  
Victor and Barry were snickering into their kombucha. Infants, the lot of them. Bruce was surrounded by children.  
  
Oliver finally extricated himself, taking Hal’s hand and nudging him into the couch, where Hal collapsed agreeably, tucking his head against Bruce’s chest, tossing his feet onto the armrest.  
  
“Asshole,” Oliver muttered gently, and rescued his cashew chicken to go sit next to Dinah.  
  
"Get off of me, Jordan,” Bruce snarled at the top of Hal's head.   
  
“Hrrrnnnnfgh,” replied Hal. Bruce could feel the quiet vibration of the sound against his shoulder.

He reached out to shove him off and Oliver went, "Ahhh, bup-bup-bup! You don't wanna do that! He's fragile!”

Bruce levelled the blackest possible glare at the archer. "Fragile,” he snapped, and Oliver, characteristically, beamed right back at him.

"Doctor's orders!” Oliver continued cheerily. "Hal stays put. You don't mind too much, do you?”  
  
“Oh for the love of Christ,” Bruce muttered, and slipped an arm around Hal’s back when he started sliding off the side, hauling him securely close. He could feel Clark's eyes on him now, curious and watchful, and he should probably have not gone along with any of this quite so easily. Probably, he should have made more of a fuss, given Hal a little more shit about acting like the giant puppy he secretly was.

It was just... hard to be mad about anything, when he had about six-feet-plus-change of warm, gorgeous flyboy draped across his front, trying to use him like a body pillow.  
  
One-handed, he picked through a carton of fried rice with his chopsticks, while Hal wriggled into increasingly dangerous positions against Bruce. Hal jammed a sleep-heavy forearm around Bruce's waist, his mouth finding a patch of skin just below Bruce’s jaw. He could feel the hot rush of his breath against his neck, slow and measured.  
  
Bruce could feel his lips there too, the gentle press against his skin, and he swallowed dryly, closing his eyes. It was… a Pavlovian response. Having Hal so close was doing very, very bad things to his composure, and the fact that there were a small multitude of people with super senses in the room wasn't doing much to help, goddamn it.  
  
They had been doing such an exceptional job of keeping their whatever-it-was under wraps, these last few months, and now Hal was gonna blow it all to hell, because he could never keep his head on straight, after a fight.

* * *

That's how it had started, of course.  
  
They had tackled these giant robot-shark things off the coast of Chile, with some help from Arthur and his army, and afterwards, Bruce had found Hal, still dripping in weird shark bits and circuitry, pink-red gunk thick in his hair, stinking like a fish market. Bruce had taken one look at him and burst out laughing, helpless with exhaustion, and Hal had shoved him, palm spread against his face, directly into the shower stream. Bruce had let him, spluttering out water, and then laughed some more, and the whole thing had turned into the stupidest tackle fight that lasted about three seconds, until Bruce and Hal came to their senses and realized they were both naked and wet and halfway to hard.  
  
It had devolved pretty rapidly from there: Hal walked Bruce into a wall, and kissed him the way Bruce had only dreamed of sometimes, hungry and wet and fucking dirty, the kind of kissing that meant he had only one thing on his mind, and Bruce had gone from halfway hard to fuck-yes-are-we-gonna-come faster than a Lamborghini went zero to hundred on the Autobahn.   
  
Bruce had pulled to breathe, in that shower, hair plastered to his skull, the world tipping vaguely to his right, while Hal’s hands curled into his ass, and his cock rubbed against Bruce’s, thick and red and so goddamn pretty. “Well, fuck, Spooky,” Hal had murmured breathlessly, and Bruce had arched an eyebrow in return.  
  
“That is the idea,” he had said, and it had punched a laugh out of Hal.  
  
“That smart mouth of yours,” he had said delightedly. "It's gonna get you in trouble one day.”  
  
“Well. Hope springs eternal,” Bruce had replied, and kissed Hal again, and then dropped to his knees and put that mouth on Hal's cock, and the sound Hal had made then, way too loud for where they were. His knees had trembled violently and his palm slapped out against the wall, the other curled around Bruce, gripping his shoulder desperately, trying not to cry out, hot tight wet heat enveloping his cock, as Bruce swallowed him down, the muscles of his throat fluttering around the head of his cock and Hal was saying all kinds of things, his voice gone low, wrecked: so good baby you feel so fucking good Bruce sweetheart look at you your mouth that fucking mouth baby yeah come on take it, take it, Christ you were made for this, weren't you? So goddamn beautiful, baby, and Bruce had moaned around the thickness in his mouth, like he liked it, and that was what had made Hal come for the first time that night, made him clutch Bruce's shoulder like a sailor at storm, and fuck that pretty, pretty mouth all the way down to the root, made him come in deep, bone-shaking shudders.   
  
In fact, Bruce had discovered all kinds of things about Hal that night: that Hal was a filthy son of a bitch, and pretty much down for everything, that he could come and come and then, if Bruce worked hard enough for it, come again, just on the edge of pain, that he blushed all the way down to his chest when Bruce did something he really liked.  
  
That he had very, very clever hands.  
  
Artist’s hands, Bruce had thought at the time, and now, one of those hands had rucked up his t-shirt. His fingers were resting low, low, just under the waistband of his sweats, calluses against the thin, fragile, blood-warm skin there, stroking a little.  
  
“Jordan,” Bruce said, shaking him a little. “You're crushing my ribs.”  
  
Hal lifted his head up slowly. Blinked up at Bruce with that careful deliberation of someone very, very drunk.

“Bruce,” he slurred, his voice low and rough, a hoarse sound that went straight to his cock.  
  
Bruce swallowed uselessly again. “Alright, enough of this. We're putting you in a bed.”  
  
From his left, Oliver made a choked little noise in his throat. “Selina know you're taking strange men to your bed, Batman?” His voice was brimming with laughter.  
  
Bruce felt his jaw work a little. " _His_ bed, is what I meant, and you know it. Besides, Selina... isn't in the picture anymore,” he muttered, in a completely horrifying burst of honesty.  
  
“Oh.” Oliver looked a little chastened, which was fun. “I’m— shit, I’m so sorry, man. How did I not know about this?”  
  
“Because you're an idiot,” Dinah supplied sweetly.

Oliver made a face at his wife, before turning back to Bruce. “So, does this mean you're single? Because there's this friend of Dinah's—”

"Oh hell no, Ollie, we aren't setting up my friends with superheroes, that never ends well—”

"No, come on," Oliver I'm talking about Andy, don't you think she and Bruce would—”

"Alright, fine, but only this one time, and only because it's Andy, but honestly, Ol—”

"Come on, you guys would get on great!” Oliver told Bruce. "You aren't seeing anyone right now are you?"  
  
“Yeah,” Hal said. That hand was still on Bruce’s waist. His eyes were on Bruce, were flickering between his eyes and his mouth. The lights were low, in deference to the movie, but they still caught the gleam of Hal’s reddened lower lip, like he had bitten into it. “You seeing anyone, Bruce?”  
  
Hal's eyes were dark and unfathomable, and his mouth were red and his hair all fucked up, and the man looked good no matter what he was doing, but sweet baby Jesus, he had never looked better than right now.  
  
Bruce's throat was arid, a vast endless desert, and an abyss of desire had cracked open in his chest. He wanted to push Hal down onto the sofa, tell everyone to fuck off. Wanted to kiss that beautiful mouth, wanted to peel his clothes off, wanted to rut against that hard, unbelievable body, until they’d both come their brains out through their cocks. Wanted to climb to his knees, and lick him clean, and feel him get hard again. Wanted to open him up, slow and easy, until he was sloppy from Bruce’s mouth and his fingers and lube, wanted to fuck him till he cried.  
  
Bruce wanted to tell him to stay, wanted to tell him to stay the night, wanted to wake him up with him every morning. Wanted breakfasts and dinners and giving him shit for the amount of khaki he wore, wanted soft, lazy kisses on Sundays that didn't even lead to fucking. Wanted, wanted, wanted. His heart was crashing against the confines of his chest, and his ribs were too small, too tight to contain this, this paroxysm of desire. His eyes were burning and his throat was tight, and Hal’s hand was tight on his waist.  
  
The sheen of drunkenness had dissipated from Hal’s eyes. “Yeah, Bruce. _Are_ you seeing anyone?” Hal asked him, and Bruce—  
  
There was something in Hal’s voice, a catch, like he was bracing himself for a hit, like he was pulling up his shield, and Bruce looked at him, and thought, fuck it, fuck it, if you don't say it now, when will you? When? When one of you dies for real?  
  
“Yes. I am,” Bruce said. _You,_ he didn't say, but he had spent practically every night for the last three months with Hal, and the man was the farthest thing from stupid. Bruce looked up to Oliver and shrugged apologetically. “Sorry.”  
  
But Diana had perked up. “You are courting someone?” She was beaming her enormous mega-watt smile, and it was like a miniature sun had descended into the small, dark room. “Who is it? Why have we not heard of this person until now?”  
  
_We were keeping it quiet,_ was what Bruce intended to say, and he opened his mouth, and that was when he realized Hal had gone terribly, awfully still. And so what he said, instead, was, “Jordan? Do you need... Shall I call for the doctor?”  
  
“You're seeing someone, are you.”

The warmth had vanished from those eyes. His jaw, that perfectly carved jaw, had gone hard, and his voice had an ugly, jeering edge to it, like anger, like derision, like, _you thought I wanted you for anything more than a quick fuck, you pathetic little shit?_

And all of it felt like someone had sucker-punched Bruce in the chest, had yanked the heart out of him and sank a knife in its place, hot and red, cauterizing the bleed even as it carved him up.  
  
_Jesus_. Why had he opened his stupid goddamn mouth. Why did he think Hal would— Why did he think. Why did he think.  
  
Of course they weren't.  
Of course Hal knew he could do better than a massive fuck-up like Bruce. Of c— God, why did it hurt like this.  
  
Alright, so he knew why. Because that had taken some major detective work.  
  
So when Bruce spoke, he was, in a way, perversely proud of how steady his voice was. “Did you want me to say I wasn't?” he asked Hal quietly.

Hal was peeling himself away, heaving up to his feet. Whatever split-second clarity he had managed had been drowned once more in a narcotic haze, and he stumbled a little, standing up too fast, like he couldn't bear to be near Bruce anymore. Barry scrambled from his chair to help Hal when Bruce didn't. “Doesn’t matter wh’ I wan’ed, doessit,” Hal mumbled, laying a heavy arm over Barry’s shoulders, and stumbling away.  
  
“Okay,” Clark said into the ensuing quiet. Oliver had muted the movie. Now, he chose, to develop his sudden talent of situational awareness. Jesus goddamn. Could never catch a fucking break with these guys. “I’ll ask it: what the heck just happened?”

“Nothing,” Bruce snapped.


	2. Chapter 2

So that was it, Bruce figured. That was how it ended, just how it began. Not with a bang, but a whimper.

He could live with that, he told himself, staring blindly out of the windows of his quarters in the Hall, a crystal-cut glass of scotch dangling from the tips of his fingers, the ocean crashing soundlessly against the dark glittering rocks at the base of Mount Justice. It had been nearly twenty-four hours since the debacle of the previous night, and Bruce had spent most of it either asleep or some stage of mostly drunk. Something cold and foggy had settled in the vacuum of his chest. He had survived worse. He would survive this too.

It was fine.  
It was—

“You need to drink less.”

Bruce shut his eyes. Hal. He hadn't reconfigured the systems and Hal still had automatic access to his rooms. The sound of his voice cut cleanly through the fog, and revealed the raw, gaping wreckage of his chest. Shit. Fucking shit, it wasn't fine at all.

“We're off duty, Jordan,” Bruce said, rough, low, too angry to play it cool, “So what I need is for you to stop thinking you get to tell me what to do.”

“Mm-hm. That help? You feel better?”

“Much,” Bruce snapped over his shoulder. He caught a glimpse of Hal, in his peripheral vision, back in his ratty flight suit, leaning against the closed door, ankles crossed, arms folded over his chest.

“Staying in tonight, huh?” Hal mocked. “No hot date for Batman?”

Jesus fucking Christ. He didn't think Hal would… He got it, he understood Hal didn't want him, but he didn't think Hal would be cruel.

“No," he said, turning his back on Hal again.

“Good.”

And in a bare matter of seconds, the tumbler had been yanked from his hand, and Bruce had been spun around, and slammed into the windows behind him, pinned between the glass and— and Hal.

He could feel the bulge of that beautiful cock, against his hips, the hot fan of breath caressing his jaw.

“Is that it,” Bruce murmured half to himself, and he almost wanted to laugh. "Is that what you want." Fucking of course. Just because Hal had stamped on his heart didn't mean he didn't still want to get laid.

Well, alright.

Bruce could give him that. Bruce could give him that much, at least. The only person he’d be hurting here was himself, and Bruce had always been okay with that. “Come on, then, flyboy. Show me what you like.”

He tilted his mouth up, and Hal leaned close, brushed their lips together, soft and hesitant, and shockingly gentle, and god, Bruce had been tortured, had been water-boarded and electrocuted and shot at and blown up, and what did that compare, what did it even hold, against this coring, exquisite pain.

Hal was careful, holding Bruce’s face like some lovely, precious thing, and his mouth was opening him up slowly, kissing him like he was oxygen, and their bodies were notched together perfectly, so Bruce could feel just how hard they both were getting, could roll his hips and feel Hal catch his breath. The carefully tightening grip on his waist, the slow, heavy grind of their aching cocks.

“Bruce,” Hal whispered, and god he was so hard, how was this so good, they were just humping against a wall like goddamn teenagers. “God, you're so—”

“Shut up and kiss me,” Bruce muttered, and Hal found a way to undo their pants, and wrap his hand around their thick, leaking cocks. Bruce's head slammed back against the plate glass, a garbled sound choking out of his throat that might have been Hal’s name. The soft whuff of Hal’s laugh against his temple.

It was a slow, desperate build. Hal's mouth moved to his jaw, his hands moved to grip Bruce’s ass, thumbing at the crease, and Bruce was panting, was a damp, shivering mess, his cock red and flushed, blindly rutting against those perfect, gloriously hard abs, smearing him with precome, when had Hal taken off the top half of his suit? How had he not noticed?

“Christ, I’m so— Hal, are you,” Bruce gasped, and then sealed his mouth over Hal’s anyway, too blitzed with desire to kiss properly, just fucking that hot mouth with his tongue, moaning when Hal sank a finger inside him, thick and blunt, twisted his hands in the dark, short-cropped hair of his nape. “Hal, I’m, I’m—”

“Come on,” Hal whispered, and he was always like that, always quiet, until he’d teased Bruce right to the edge, and then all the dirty talk spilled from him like a flood. “Come on, I want to see it, want to see you come, want you to paint me with it, want to see you come on my cock next time, baby, Bruce, sweetheart, oh fuck, fuck, you're gorgeous,” and the backs of his eyelids turned white, turned into a furnace-hot blaze, and Bruce was choking his cry into the hard curve of Hal’s shoulder, biting into that straining muscle, clenching on Hal’s finger, his cock spurting hot and wet, that made his ears fill with nothing, made his knees shake and his heart thunder.

Hal bore him down even harder then, his thighs streaked with Bruce’s cum, his hand heavy with it, and he was stripping his own cock with that hand, was fucking his hand, his eyes squeezed shut, hard and furious, and Bruce stroked his back, and slurred, “Come for me, now, now,” and he— God, he did.

It took them a minute, to come down from that.

Hal was... smiling, just a hint of it. His eyes were soft. He tucked a curl of hair behind Bruce’s ear. “Hey,” he said.

And all Bruce could see was the way Hal had looked at him that night, that ugly, revolted look in his eyes, when Oliver had asked if Bruce was seeing someone, and in a moment of desperate, shaky hope, Bruce had said yes.

Good for a fuck, not good enough for anything more. Bruce had been okay with that status quo pretty much his whole life. But his whole life, it had never felt like this.

“I can't do this,” he said abruptly.

Hal blinked. “What?” he asked, like he was confused.

Bruce jerked up his pants. Christ, this was humiliating. “I can't.” He pushed away from the windows, past Hal, towards the door. “I thought I could, but this is...” _more difficult than I had anticipated._ “Beyond my...” _ability to endure._ “I can't do this,” he repeated.

“Bruce. Where are you going?”

“Where am I—” Bruce broke off. Looked around.

“This is your room. If you don't want me here, you don't need to kick yourself out.”

But that was the thing, wasn't it? Because Bruce _did_ want Hal here. Wanted him here all the time, every day, every night, wanted to hold him down and never let go.

“Gotham,” Bruce said. “Arkham's recalibrating the security systems, I need to be there, I need to make sure nothing happens.”

“ _Bruce_.” Hal didn't sound like he believed a word Bruce had said.

“Good night, Lantern.”

* * *

Days passed.

Bruce was fine.

Hal went deep-cover in the Theta sector to track down a budding insurrection on one of the local systems' moons. Kyle and Jessica, who were tagging along with the senior Lantern, decided the thing to do was send the League selfies from their New Adventures in Outer Space. Hal was typically caught somewhere in the background of their increasingly silly photos, looking tense and quiet and drawn.

Bruce glad-handed the new French premier, took care of the inevitable leak in Arkham's security system after Scarecrow managed a short-lived breakout, flew out to the South Pacific to shut down a trafficking unit out of Mauritius that was funnelling money to the Black Mask. He met with Clark for lunch a few times, and spent time on Damian's training, and actually found time to visit the office every now and then.

Days turned to weeks.

It was amazing how much time he suddenly had, when he wasn't spending every free minute arranging his and Hal’s schedules so they could fuck like rabbits.

Bruce was fine.

He spent slightly more time than was maybe respectable, staring at Hal’s pale, tired face in the background of Jessica's selfies, but that was... it was fine.

He’d get over it. In retrospect, what was amazing was that Hal had wanted him for as long as he did. What was truly amazing was, in all those long months, they hadn't ever been found out.

“You know we all found out ages ago, right?”

Bruce stilled. Goddamn it, _this_ was why he hated working in the labs at the Hall. Not enough sensors to warn him about incoming busybodies — or it could just be that the storm raging outside tonight had drowned something out.

“Did you,” he muttered at Oliver without turning around - because of course. Of course it was Oliver.

“You were having sex in the Hall,” he said patiently. “Did you think we would somehow... miss that?”

Bruce struggled to keep his face still, for all the good that would do. The thing was - he hadn't tried to hide it, not with the usual finesse. What would have been the point? He'd meant to hold onto it with both hands for as long as Hal would have him. What did it matter if anyone else found out? Nothing at all.

What an idiot he had been.

“What do you want,” he bit out, feeling the slow, hot slide into rage.

“For Hal to stop _brooding_ all over the damn place.”

“Then get him a date, and stop bothering me,” Bruce snapped.

Oliver made an irritable sound in the back of his throat, that sounded suspiciously like, _‘I’m trying to, you moron.’_

But he didn't leave, lingering behind Bruce's chair like a bad smell, and after a good ten minutes of feeling the man _brood_ against the back of his head, he finally snapped, "What do you want, Arrow."

"Can't you just _talk_ to him?!" Oliver burst out instantly. "He goes around looking like someone shot his dog, and he won't gimme a straight answer—"

"How on earth am I supposed to be any of help—"

"Aw, come on, Bruce! I told you, we all kn—"

"Yes, but what you all seemed to have missed out on," Bruce snarled at him, suddenly, coldly furious, "is that it's _over_."

“Holy mother of— No way. What did he do.”

Bruce blinked his eyes open. There was the strangest look in Oliver's eyes; if he didn't know better, he could have called it anger. “What did who do?” he asked, baffled.

“Hal.”

“Hal?" Bruce repeated. The insulating anger was trickling away, just as suddenly as it had arrived, leaving him empty, worn-out, a little cold. "Nothing. He's your friend, why would you think—”

“You're my friend too, dumbass, and if he did anything to make you look like— Seriously, Bruce. What happened?”

It was the sincerity in Oliver's voice that did it. They'd been close once, when they were young - he remembered it vividly now, in a blinding rush. Seven or eight years old, trailing through the Queen mansion after Ollie and Thea, both of them golden and shining, their brilliant laughter, their smiles like faceted jewels in the sunlight... He'd adored Ollie, once, as a little boy, the warmth of him, the generous, bleeding kindness of his heart. Bruce sighed. Suddenly, he was almost painfully grateful for the question. He wanted to tell Oliver the truth - or at least, the Oliver of his memories, the careless beautiful boy he recalled.

“Nothing,” Bruce said, because that's what had happened, exactly: nothing. “He didn't— He didn't want-” He didn't want me. Bruce looked away. His heart was beating so hard, it felt like it was punching directly against his ribs, straining like a caged bird, trying to break free. “He didn't want more than what we were— and I did, so—”

“What.”

Bruce and Oliver both turned around.

Hal was at the door.

The open door.

“For fuck’s sake,” Bruce snapped, “Aren't you supposed to be several hundred light years away?”

“The job's done,” Hal said mechanically. “I just came in because Ollie said— Bruce, you. You wanted— what?”

“Get out,” Bruce snapped, but it was Oliver who took his advice instead of Hal, Hal who was still in the Lantern suit, hair damp from the summer storm raging outside the Hall. 

Hal was walking towards him. His brows had pulled down in a confused frown. “You're seeing someone. You said, I heard you say... I wasn't _that_ buzzed. You said you were seeing someone. Even though we were, even though we... Ollie asked you about that woman, and you said you couldn't because you were seeing—”

“I meant you.” Bruce wanted to run the bastard through with an honest to god sword. Jesus. Because his humiliation hadn't been complete enough. He smiled bitterly. “Pathetic, I know, but I thought the fucking meant more than— When Oliver asked, I meant I couldn't go on a date with his friend because I was seeing you.”

“Me.”

Bruce looked away from Hal, from those dark, fathomless eyes, and braced his hands on the cool, metal edge of the table. Hal was still looming at his side, and his gaze was fixed on Bruce. The air between them felt unbearably warm. “Will you please just go.”

“Bruce, won't you look at me. I thought you were seeing someone else.”

Bruce looked up.

“I was so... I was so goddamn jealous.” Hal was almost smiling. His hand was touching Bruce, was touching his face, stroking his cheek. “I thought I was just the guy you were... you know, fucking on the side for stress relief and there were someone else you really liked, and I... god, I was so fucking jealous, I wanted her dead, whoever she was, and—”

“You were jealous,” Bruce repeated. That didn't make sense. That didn't— why would Hal be jealous. Why would he be, unless—

“Yeah,” Hal said. “Yeah, ‘course I was.” His voice was so soft. Bruce could get lost in that voice. Could discover whole new worlds in that voice. Could live there forever. "Baby, of course I was jealous as hell, come on."

“Why.”

“Because I want more too.” Hal stepped closer, or maybe that was Bruce. Their foreheads tipped together. Hal's hand found his, and their fingers laced together. His eyes were dark, and bright, and in them, Bruce could see the stars. “I want... everything, with you.”

* * *

“Hey, kid," Oliver said, when Jessica swung into the empty chair next to his in the Hall's monitor room.

"How're they doing?” Jessica asked.

“I’m afraid I can't say, Miss Cruz," Oliver replied obsequiously. "Privacy protocols have been activated.” His eyes twinkled at her. “Meaning,” he added, "they're fucking on the table.”

She whistled. “Nicely done. Finally living up to your thematic, you know,” she said, waving her hand about elaborately.

“The bow and arrow? Yeah," he grinned. “I’m sure the pictures helped too," he added generously. "Poor little Hal, looking hurt and lonely, all by his lonesome in outer space.”

Jessica stuck out her palm. Oliver slapped it, beaming at the kid.

Ha. Suck on _that_ , cupid.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> sorry part ii took so long to post — i had to move across the country this week, which. like. let me tell how much fun that was — and then this....... whole week happened, and i just haven't had any time to breathe until right now.
> 
> thanks for reading! if you liked it, remember to hit kudos <3  
> for more fannish nonsense, find me on tumblr @pasdecoeur.


End file.
